1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a power demand management apparatus and a power demand management system that manage power demand of a consumer house.
2. Related Art
Citation 1 describes a system that, when the power consumption in a certain geographical region exceeds a prescribed reference value, broadcasts a power conservation request to consumer houses in this region. Citation 2 discloses a system that, based on actual data concerning the compliance of each device in a consumer house with a request for power demand restriction, predicts whether each device in the consumer house will comply with such requests in the future.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-345177    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-142023
However, there are cases in which a company such as a specified power supplier uses a grid system of a general power supplier, and supplies power to consumer houses under contract from an owned or contracted power supply. Such companies predict the power demand during certain periods in the future, and purchase in advance power for these periods in order to fulfill the predicted power demands.
In recent years, in consideration of reducing carbon dioxide, for example, there are cases where it is undesirable to purchase in advance enough power to fulfill the predicted power demand and then provide this power to the consumer houses.
Therefore, the present invention provides a power demand management apparatus and a power demand management system that realize energy conservation.